3.3 - One Incident (How Did That Table Turn?)

We all have had moments that started as routine and commonplace that turned into extraordinary, memorable ones.

They stay with us for years beyond their occurrence because they resulted in some unexpected insight about someone, something, or ourselves.

Maybe a routine day going to school made you appreciate how good you had it.

(Read Best Mom – I Get It Now)

Maybe an ordinary visit to a friend’s house let you see that the world outside yours was different.

(Read Between Worlds)

Maybe a mundane chore brought out an angry side in yourself.

(Read Hubris)

These moments stick in our memory because they reveal the different, the unexpected.

Recall some of these moments in your life and tell the story of what happened.

Add the unexpected insight you gained from the moment.

 

Example

Best Mom – I Get It Now

What a surprise it was when I learned that not all mothers drove their kids to school and picked them up every day. My mother did, and I thought that was the way of the world. Every morning even before I was old enough to attend school, she would get my two brothers and me into the huge gray Oldsmobile that was so old it was embarrassing to ride in let alone get behind the wheel of, and drive the mile or so out of our neighborhood and into the Polish one where St. Hedwig’s School was. She would make the trek again at 11:30 for lunch and back and again at 3:00 for the ride home at the end of the school day. As I write that now, I’m amazed at how much time she took out of her day to be a chauffeur. When I finally went to school, I noticed big yellow buses pulling up and kids in my class getting out every morning. Those same kids stayed in at lunch time while I and a few lucky others left the building, walked to our waiting mom/drivers, and enjoyed an hour break to eat and listen to the radio or watch TV. Then at the end of the day, those same kids who arrived on the buses lined up to get on them. Those poor kids, I thought. Their moms don’t love them enough to drive them around!

​

Between Two Worlds

I thought I was like everyone else, and then I found out I lived on the bad side of town. It all came about as a result of attending elementary school in a different neighborhood because it was a Polish Catholic school and of going to a Catholic high school rather than the public one. First, I realized I was not like the kids on the street where I lived who went to the neighborhood public schools or the Catholic school just down the street. I guess I thought we were better for that. Then in high school, I realized most of the students and teachers considered where I lived to be a bad, dangerous neighborhood--the bad side of town. Not only was I not like everyone else. I was not like anyone else!

​

            What a surprise it was to find out that other fathers did not drink a six-pack of beer on Friday nights. That was a very normal sight for me and my brothers. After working all week at a job he probably disliked, my dad would come home on Friday afternoon, workout by kicking a soccer ball around at Hetzel Field with us, wash up, and pop open a can of Schaefer to wash down his shot of Seagram’s Seven. He’d then sit in his recliner, watch TV, and finish off the six-pack, chasing a shot each time. At some point, maybe after the third or fourth round, he would start to verbalize his disgust with just about everything--his job, his wife, the world. To his credit, though, only when my brothers and I reached our teen years, or maybe college, did he start to attack us with his words. So when I visited friends and met their fathers, if it was Friday night I expected the same routine. Thankfully I found out it was unique to my home.

 

Hubris

I carried a crate filled with two textbooks, about forty research papers of fifteen to twenty pages each, and the ever-popular red coverage slips along with my classroom door keys. My palms burned as the heavy crate’s edges cut into them. I moved down the hallway through the maze of students who stood, sat, or hung at their lockers or in the middle of the passage. With the door in view about fifteen paces on the right, my brain calculated how difficult it would be to position my key in the door to unlock it while I still held the load. As I pictured the scenario in my head, my eye glimpsed Amy scampering in the other direction, and the guessing game began. Would she acknowledge my presence? Or would she pretend not to notice me and turn to the other wall as we passed each other?

​

Beads of sweat formed on my back. They were mostly from the warm April weather and the exertion I put out to carry that load of papers and books in the crate. But my perception of how Amy made me feel insignificant and invisible in the last few months and the confusion about our relationship created the heat that added to the fever.

​

I reddened and my head seemed to blow up like a balloon, as if each slight added another puff of air. The balloon would explode long before the air flow stopped in my head. As Amy approached with her hand on the key that hung from a lanyard around her neck, control slipped out of my grasp. I can’t do this anymore. I’m gonna let her know I exist.

​

“Here, I’ll get it.” Amy’s morning voice penetrated the air even from ten feet away.

​

I dropped the crate with a boom that echoed down the hall. Students and teachers turned and gazed in my direction. I stared at Amy and barked “DON’T BOTHER. I’M FINE!” in my get-out-of-my-face voice. She meekly retreated to her classroom.

​

Suddenly I felt young, like a kid again, but not in a carefree way. What am I? Thirteen? I thought. Hubris. Why can’t I just say good morning? 

​

I froze for a few seconds. Shallow breaths came fast as the heat creeped through my entire body. I shakily unlocked the door, opened it, picked up my crate, and moved like I walked over red hot coals to the desk in the classroom.